Friday, June 28, 2013

You put your Kevin in, you take your Kevin out. You put your Julia in and you shake her all about. You take your Julia out, you put your Kevin in. That's what the Labor Party Headless Chicken Dance is all about.

Poor bloody Julia Gillard. Her political career killed by a poisoned
Ruddy apple, from a barrel soaked in the arsenic of Canberra politics.
The Mad Abbott has clean hands and budgie smugglers in this matricide.
It was the Australian Labor Party intellectual dwarves that done her in;
Misogynist, Racist, Pugilist, Supremacist, Separatist, Elitist, and
dopey Myopia. Just the usual Australian reptiles eating tomorrow's eggs.

Some time ago, I promised I would read Gordon Dryden's Out of the Red, after Chris Trotter waved it about as an example of the lost art of journalism. I've only read about a third of it so far. For example, I haven't yet got to the part where my old man tells Norm Kirk to lose five stone weight in order to improve Labour's chances of winning the election.

"In our post-election interview almost a year earlier Mr Muldoon had listed West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as the world leader he most admired. Schmidt's well up on my list too. And the German leader had said just a few weeks earlier that the major cause of inflation in the world was the overwhelming majority of countries printing extra money that was unmatched by increases in goods and services."

Trotter's tilting at windmills if he thinks there's a snowball's chance to resurrect any lift for QE.That dirigible has crashed. Any chance Sancho Bradbury can pull the Don from that wreckage?

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

# Foreshadowing 2015-17; Member for Doublespeak, Winston "No Baubles" Peters, has used the word Orwellian in a sentence, thereby signalling that he will support the GCSB spy bill. After a few sweeties have been thrown in, of course.

Having birthed his nemesis over a cup of tea with John Banks back in 2011, John Key will have no choice but to hitch Winston to his wagon in 2014 to stay PM. Werewolf Peters will join Zombie Banks at the reins of the same government for the first time since the 90s.

Little wonder Key is trying to voodoo up any Green Lab coalition in the public imagination. No-one has yet imagined the terrible price of a Nat/ NZ First/ Act coalition. Charter schools popped out of nowhere post-2011. Dagg knows what Peters will fart out for his price in 2014.

The security services don't work for New Zealanders. They're sworn to serve the Queen and her successors, not us. Their Big Daddy, GCHQ, is a squalid corrupt shambles. Dagg knows what the state of the GCSB is like, but judging Kitteridge's words, I wouldn't trust them with the keys to the nation's grid.

# Cannabis law reform has proved an acid test in the Ikaroa-Rawhiti by-election, separating the realists from the conservatives. It's good to see a Mana candidate speak well on the subject. Hone Harawira has always been too conservative to grok the problem, as have the Maori Party gerontocracy.

# And finally, Peter Dunne. After considerable stirring of my mixed feelings, I must conclude that the worm has turned and good riddance.

United Future lucked it on the back of a worm in the 2002 election, a subject I spoke of for one of my post-grad papers in 2006, just before one of my meltdowns. Dunne killed cannabis reform with his coalition agreement with the Clark administration, ruining some sensible plans from Labour's Tim Barnett, who had seen through Civil Unions and Prostitution Reform.

That kind of damage is unforgiveable. No sympathy for Captain Sensible. He has ruined so many lives, his least of all.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Bryce Edwards seems to have taken a page out of the Glenn Beck School of Rhetorical Trolls by parsing his latest Politics Daily summary by with byline, Is the Green Party losing its soul? This pot of Solstice shit-stirring has been brought about by Norman dropping the hippy dippy Quantitative Easing Policy, a sane and pragmatic step which has forced me out of my hole prematurely to defend.

Back in the the early days of MMP, when I was a volunteer research assistant in the Act Party's Bowen House offices, I devised a not-so-dubious theory that the minor parties acted as experimental stunt muppets for policy. If the policy stuck to the wall of public acceptance, the dominant parties of National or Labour would adopt them as their own.

This theory has been borne out since then. Everything from from Act's Treaty Deadlines to the Greens' Insulation Scheme has been grabbed by mainstream politics. It's not such a stretch. The main two parties do it all the time, cannibalising each other's policies, from universal welfare benefits to local council amalgamation.

When a party fails to sell a policy, it is shelved. Printing money was a kite that rightly got shot down. No harm in admitting defeat there. The Labour Party are doing it all the time, saying sorry for everything from GST off fresh fruit and vege through to duplicitous stances on Sky City's brand of hospitality. I'm especially looking forward to the apology for Clayton Cosgrove.

Nup, it's nothing but realpolitik from the Greens, and good on them for adapting. It pays to recognise which way the wind is blowing.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Dear readers; as you might have surmised, I've come down with a case of Weltschmerz. Normal service will resume in the fullness of time. In the meantime, looking at the Outlook for Thursday, what with some bloggers marooned already and everything, here's a bit of music therapy while everyone battens down the hatches.

Nice weather for the Mutton Birds:

And back to the Mutton Birds, dedicated to Busted Blonde and Brunswick:

Well, I was born a Labour Party baby
I was raised a Labour Party kid
But if I had a Hillary bill
For all the cred they've killed
I'd have a Parnell palace
Just like John Key did
Hey!

My Dad, he told me good
My Dad, he told me strong
Stick with Progressive Labour
And you can't go wrong
But there's just one thing
You must understand
You can fool your brother
But don't mess with the Green Party Humans
Don't mess with the Green Party Humans
Don't mess with the Green Party Humans
Don't mess with the Green Party Humans
etc.

Unfortunately, the CV is in disrepair, and I fear I'd say something offensive during any interview, so I won't be applying. May the best human win.